


Oxymoron

by artattemptswriting



Category: Alexander Hamilton - Fandom, American Revolution RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Burr waited a really long time for it, Burr waited for it, Fluff and Smut, Founding Fathers, M/M, One Night Stands, RPF, Reincarnation, Romance, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6399208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artattemptswriting/pseuds/artattemptswriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oxymoron: When two contradictory terms are used in conjunction or cojoined </p><p>Or, a three-part minific in which a lonely and guilt-ridden Burr finally finds Hamilton, struggling to reconcile his past and his present, and has a one-night stand with him which leads to shattering consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contradiction

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it was just going to be a one-shot, but sometimes... things don't go to plan. Reading Chernow's biography gave me a little too much inspiration, and, coupled with Burr's journal, it was too much to resist. Yes, this was inspired by the genius work, Hamilton, by Lin Manuel Miranda (that man is my role model, he's such a smol) but this is Real Person Fiction as I find that a little easier to get my head around.

Above the sleeping suburbs of New York, the sky is a deep violet-blue, a myriad of stars flung across it. Amidst the heartless shine that somehow shines on through the light pollution, Perseus and Andromeda gaze coolly down on Burr; they are two lovers, falling apart through the velvet darkness, and still, somehow, never falling away from the other’s reaching arms. Fingertips stretch, hair tangles, and still they fall. It is a feeling Burr knows well.  
He leans further out of his window. Stale city air mingles with the sweet, sweet promise of the countryside, chilling him through in the deepening night. He welcomes the shivers that dispel sleep from his mind, and he listens to distant shouts that drift to him on the vague breeze. Shady figures move in the distant streets, looking like spectres as they wander, aimless and drunk, beneath yellow streetlights. Somewhere out in the night, a dog’s heart-breaking cry lifts a chorus of frightened birds. The scene is ancient in its familiarity, almost achingly so, and Burr finds comfort in the agony of nostalgia. Times change, but the soul of New York city will always be the same.  
Alexander Hamilton is still the same.  
He sleeps on, oblivious to Burr’s insomniac wakefulness. A sheen of sweat still glistens on his naked torso, softly set alight by Burr’s glow-lamp. His breathing is so, so gentle; untroubled, peaceful: coppery hair frames the contours of his fine face, soft lips semi-parted as each breath whistles in and out. His freckles stand out from skin that is paler than Burr remembers, forming a constellation to rival that which Burr admires from his window-seat. Alexander resembles a work of art as he lies there, all soft slopes and gentle features; he is a long-lost beauty from the renaissance era, and that is how Burr wants to remember him. There will be no more bloody convulsions this time around, no wearied eyes and prematurely grey hair.  
Just like before, it had started with a drink. Who had introduced themselves first, Burr wonders? He isn’t sure, but then again, neither is he sure who instigated the kiss. 1776 had never seemed so far away, nor so much nearer, than it did when Alexander’s hand had slid close over his wrist. _Shall we get a drink?_ A Scottish accent this time around, mellow, clipped; a city boy. Still, Burr can hear a hint of something wilder, and he knows it is not from Glasgow where Alexander later professes to be his home. They walk down the evening street, limbs so close but not once touching; Alexander is teasing him, Burr knows, and he welcomes it. The street was old, and the story behind it was older- far older, in fact, than Alexander knows. He had walked in without a care, and unknowingly, beautifully, history began again. There was the bar at which he and Hamilton had sat, in this very Inn. It is now a bar of the spit-and-sawdust variety, a glowering bartender watching when Alexander’s hand lingers over Burr’s as drinks are exchanged. There was the table, so like the one at which Laurens, Lafayette and Mulligan had sat, singing their rowdy song to the revolution they craved. It had stood empty, until Alexander threw himself into a chair. History likes to play her little games, it seems. Instead of those three loud youngsters, burning with brimstone resolution, Burr and Alexander sit there: Hamilton and Burr; they are strangers turning into something else.  
Oh, Alexander...  
Bright eyed, dark, bristling, fiery Alexander, brimming with so great an intellect for someone of his age- he is so young, it takes Aaron’s breath away. He looks too innocent for this, even as he watches him sleep. It makes Burr want to cry.  
Burr can hardly believe that he had forgotten the young Hamilton who accosted him in the streets. His nightmares will only show him a man whose life was burning away in a blaze of glory, broken and hollow-eyed; hollowed out by loss and grief. That is the ghost who haunts him, and when Burr had seen that young man who bore Alexander’s name and face walking on the other side of the road, his heart had caught in his throat. Oh, such was the price of his survival. Such he still pays.  
‘Are you coming back to bed?’ there is a yawn and a scuffling of the covers, and then Alexander’s eyes of gemstone blue are gazing lazily at him. Those eyes are so familiar, looking just as they had when they met his across a crowded courtroom, and Burr’s heart cries for Alexander to remember that too. Burr has to steel himself. This cannot last. Alexander does not know who he was- who he is- and Burr cannot find the courage inside himself to tell that story. He nervously licks his lips.  
“Yes,” He is moving across the room, peeling away his dressing-gown, and then Alexander is straddling him with that devilish tomcat smirk on his face.  
“My flight leaves in... forty-eight hours,” he informs Burr.  
“Is that so?” Burr raises his eyebrows, and Alexander raises his own back in a delicate, mocking arch.  
“Can I get to know you a little better?” No. You have to leave. That’s what Burr wants to say. How on earth can he say no to those eyes, or that smirk, or the way which Alexander’s head tilts just oh-so-slightly? It would be so simple to say, and then Alexander would be gone. Burr could breakfast alone, and this whole affair would be over. But would that give him the peace he so badly needs? There is still a little time, he thinks, as he sucks in a deep breath to answer. He can dig himself out of his own grave.  
“If you want,”  
And Burr knows it is not serious; he knows that Alexander is just a college student who is bored, curious and looking for a way to waste the tail-end of his New York trip. He knows that, when it ends, it might just destroy him- but he still agrees, because he will take what he can get as it comes. His Alexander might be lost forever, but at least this one can be his. For two days, the fantasy can be his. God only knows, he has waited for it.

* * *

 

The next day, Alexander wakes up in a cold sweat, shaking. His hands are pressed frantically right between his ribs, eyes clouded by an insane terror; the wide eyes of a man whose desperation for life has come up against a hard, cold piece of lead. When they turn on Burr, they are filled with a dreadful recognition and it tears Burr’s soul like needle-teeth. He says nothing; there is nothing he can say or do but hold his breath and hope—

Then the moment passes.  
The troubled murk of sleep lifts from Alexander’s eyes, and with it the chilling expression melts into hot tears. Burr cannot help himself; he whispers sweet nothings in Alexander’s ear, his voice sincere, and he holds him through the waking hours until dawn turns into a rosy morning. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend. Just pretend. Pretending has sustained him for so long.  
It isn’t until they are eating breakfast in Burr’s tiny kitchen that the dream is mentioned again.  
‘You shot me,’ Alexander speaks around a mouthful of muffin. Burr chokes on his coffee.  
‘Alexander, I- shit—’ and then Alexander is swallowing with difficulty, spluttering around his muffin; laughing at Burr. He has no idea.  
‘Relax, it was a dream,’ he pauses. ‘A nightmare. Whatever— sorry, I should make you a fresh cup of coffee,’ before Burr can react, he is in motion, bustling around Burr’s kitchen, using the cream Burr bought for his strawberries. He fits into that scene like a missing puzzle piece: easy, outgoing, languid and still, bizarrely, full of life. He talks with that familiar passion, he laughs with his mouth and his body and his hands all at once. He never keeps still. At some point, he flicks coffee over Burr with his spoon. An accident with a motive, as Burr soon discovers, when they kiss again. Back to bed, stumbling through the lounge and out into the hall. Embracing, moving together: one makes love; the other screws. Sensual and sexual; sincere and impulsive. They shake, and they moan, and, together, they create an oxymoron. A perfect storm.  
When Alexander dozes once again by his side, Burr feels the salt turn stiff on his cheeks.  
Two days. For two, glorious days, Burr finds heaven- but not peace. A word so small as peace cannot even begin to cover the conflict of satisfaction and sadness and terrible, crippling guilt. Heaven without peace, Burr will later reflect over a pint, is his kind of hell.

And overhead, Alexander will watch America fall away below him and wonder what he is missing. His heart sings; it yearns for something. For what? For love, or for something that will fill the indomitable emptiness he cannot name? His mind is working in bizarre over-drive, trying to reconcile the Burr he had slept with, with the Burr from his dream. He thinks of the memories that rise in his sleep. He watches the silver clouds fall away, and he wishes he can remember.


	2. Resurgam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander returns home, and is reuinited with Burr. Our boys talk, but is it for the best?

Perseus and Andromeda stare down; twin sets of starry eyes from violet-blue; just like they had done over Burr's apartment earlier that year. So the world keeps on turning, Alexander reflects bitterly. _So it keeps turning_... Seasons come and go. Times change. The smoke from the cigar he had been given curls up, filthy grey against the beautifully clear night, lifting up his spirits to the stars.

"Come back to bed," the man drawls from the bed, just as Alexander had done to Burr. Only now, he, Alexander, is the one left on the outside; everything is back to front, the wrong way around. The world keeps on turning, but times change. The ache is back, gnawing away at him. He wants to go home, get on a plane back to Glasgow

_ (St. Croix, New York. Home) _

He does not belong here, all the way across the other side of the world, drunk on someone else's cheap beer and smoking someone else's joint of something possibly illegal. How does anyone sink so low? He stubs out the joint, watching the amber embers die away and ashes flutter out of the open window. Still warm, they look like fading fireflies in the darkness. His gaze trails back to the man, whose eyes are clouded with alcohol- cheap whisky, beer... what had they drunk? Something strong. _You look like you need something strong. Something you need to forget, pretty boy?_ Those words had drawn him in, because yes- yes, he had an entire lifetime to forget. He hadn't even asked the other man's name. Or, if he did, he does not remember; he does not care. When yet another nightmare had pulled him from sleep, Alexander gazed at the unbreakable wall of the stranger's back and longed for comfort, just as he longs for it now. His heart aches.

"No. I have to go home," he whispers.

So, he leaves, and the old ache rises in his chest. Once, what feels like a lifetime ago, he dreamt of another childhood that ran parallel to his own. The grey bowl of the Glasgow sky sometimes gave way to brilliant blue and exotic seabirds. As he tries to remember the busy road outside of his house, he thinks instead of cobblestones and crumbling bricks. He dreams of that life now, something inside of him longing for a beautifully corrupted island situated, a rough gem, in the middle of seething waters. A memory immerses him: the clamour at the docks, the acrid, eye-watering stench of humanity treated like cattle burning his nostrils, and a stomach-turning image of naked slaves traipsing before his wide eyes. Too much; too fast. All of his memories had been buried carefully by a child psychiatrist, her plastic smile luring him into submission on that awful white leather sofa. The mistake she had made, all those years ago, was to bury the memories under a cascade of psychobabble. She had not laid them to rest; nor had she soothed Alexander's fierce hunger for knowledge. Now he is willing to blister and bleed in order to dig those back out again.

Sighing, fingers pressing into his palms, he stares up at the neon sign for the bar where he and Aaron had sat together and shared a pint. It is a frail wraith of a hope, but Alexander is clinging to the chance that Aaron might return to it. He doesn't want to call for Burr at his apartment block, cowed by the memories of those two days and the departure. The day is warm, and it rolls by him slowly. He starts off sitting on the wall of the car park, checking his phone and writing in a notebook with his heart in his mouth; he wants to avoid looking suspicious if Burr does turn up. As afternoon rolls in, he finally goes inside the bar and orders himself lunch. He sits where he sat before, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood when an invasive memory filters through his subconscious.  _Raise a glass._ He flinches, he smoothes his napkin, he re-adjusts his reading glasses; he focuses a little too hard on his notebook. What had he been writing? He shifts in his chair.  _Raise a glass to freedom._ The voice is familiar, and even though he knows it is only in his head, he looks around the bar for the speaker. Without finishing his meal, he leaves the money and returns to his inconspicuous post outside. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he tries to keep himself calm; his concentration on his essay is wavering dangerously. Rising tides of emotions boil furiously in the pit of his stomach. The day continues to drag; when the light dims and the day turns cooler, Alexander realises that, unless he plucks up the courage to go back inside the bar, he will have to leave. He cannot bring himself to trust these streets after dark. Re-tracing the steps that he had walked hand in hand with Burr almost half a year earlier, he still clings to the hope that he might see Aaron. The next morning, he loiters on the street corner until curtains start twitching. The morning after that, he walks up to the door of the apartment building and his finger just grazes over the buzzer, tracing Burr's name on the plaque: _A. Burr._ As Alexander retreats quickly back down the path with his breath tearing through his chest, he tries to convince himself that he has somewhere else to be.

Over the next few days, the timeless, teeming streets of New York City wear down Alexander's boots. He digs as deep as he dares into his pockets, travelling to the banks of the Hudson, and re-discovering his favourite walkways along it; all the while he is conscious that he should not have any memory of them. The clarity, with which he recalls long walks before dawn, reciting Latin or Greek, is frightening. As time passes, he starts to piece together a better image of the life he knew before. On his return to the city, he finds himself ringing for Burr at the apartment building again, and this time the fear in his stomach subsides. His hand is still. 

"Are you looking for Aaron?" the door is opened by a young woman in a summer dress, her blonde hair tied up in a messy bun; her glasses are perched in the end of a nose smudged with ink. 

"Yes, I was hoping to speak with him," Alexander bites his lip briefly, dragging his gaze away from the ink stain. The woman is older than him, for sure, but not by much. "I'm a... friend,"

"Oh, it's like that?" she laughs, and then claps a hand over her mouth. "Sorry, that was rude. I shouldn't comment- um... Aaron is away, last I heard. He left for Europe, something about visiting family in Glasgow? I'm his upstairs neighbour," 

"Are you sure he said Glasgow?" Alexander feels the blood drain from his face, even before the first wave of dizzy anxiety swoops over him. 

"Yeah. Hey, look... if it means that much, stick around. He usually calls every Thursday, just to make sure that the apartment is okay and that no really important mail came. You can talk to him then," her eyes soften, and something about the pity in them helps to bring Hamilton crashing back down to reality. He looks away, fiddling with the zipper on his hoody. He never could stand charity or pity. 

"That's alright, thank you, miss. Just tell him that colonel Hamilton stopped by," he pauses with his foot out of the door, wondering how else to phrase his message. He is nervous about sounding overly cryptic, or too dramatic, but four years of High School performing Shakespeare had left their mark. "And tell him I'll be back to do my part with him in the Scottish play; he'll understand," he adds, hastily trying on a grin. 

Evening finds him sitting on a park bench, waiting in tense silence as his phone rings against his ear. He has no idea what time it is back in Glasgow, and he is still jetlagged from the plane journey to New York from Australia; his head is in too many places, and too many times, which strikes him as the coldest irony yet. His knuckles are white, and he slowly relaxes his hold when the familiar voice of his mother- (although, she no longer _feels_ like his mother) - sounds, tinny and distant, but still broadly Scottish. 

"Alexander, is everything okay?" she asks, and Alexander takes a moment to force away the image of a handsome young woman in a black silk sunhat and flowing red skirt. 

"Yeah. Yeah, it's fine-"

"It's almost midnight here. What is it? Are you getting sick again? Alex, did you get into trouble or-"

"Mum!" 

"Sorry, sorry. It must be mid-day in Australia, right?"

"Actually, I'm..." he shuts his eyes. _Inhale. Exhale. Prepare for the thunder._ "...I'm in New York again,"

"Alexander Smithson, we had this discussion! How _dare_ you go back to that city? Last time I had to send you back to therapy, and pay for another therapist for you-"

"We both know money is not the issue," he snaps, and he can imagine the tightening white line of her lips, the way her painted eyebrows arch up towards her hairline, now streaked with grey. He has to resist the urge to shout back down the line at her, demanding she correct the Smithson to Hamilton; he also knows what will happen if he does. His toes are inching out onto the thinnest part of the ice. "Uhm... Mum, I don't want to fight,"

"You never do, darling, but you do it anyway," even after nineteen years, Alexander can never tell if that is light sarcasm or something darker, some brand of resentful bitterness, running beneath the surface of her words. 

"Yeah. Sorry. I was only calling because I want to come home," whatever it is, he cannot keep the bitterness out of his own voice. He knows that she can sense it. She has always been a bloodhound when it comes to his little moods and secrets. "I've had enough of travelling around with dad's money," 

"I'll meet you at the airport then,"

So, it was that simple? Alexander collects his things from the hotel, squashing notebooks and pens and clothes down until everything fits in his suitcase. He books his flight. He moves quickly, because he has too; because if he stops, even for a moment, he might become overwhelmed by nerves and excitement and his vast, unstoppable urge to run. Ever since his mother was pregnant with his little sister three years ago, all Alexander has done is run away from the family he struggles to call his own. 

Does that make him a coward?

Probably. 

Somehow he makes it. Returning to Glasgow can be likened to being hit by a bucket of cold water: refreshing, although not entirely pleasant. He is welcomed with open arms to the family home, but almost a day after his return, the fighting starts. An alien in his own family, he accidently steps on his sister's Lego model when he stumbles downstairs at midnight. The first thing he realises is the extreme pain of it in his bare foot, and the second is that his hopes of a good first impression on the sibling he hardly knows can be forgotten; his mother scolds him like a small child the next morning. Alexander stays out all the next day. He spends a lot of time wandering the city, wondering, wishing he knows where Burr is. On the second day, he visits the banks of the River Clyde, and becomes immersed in a memory of Brandywine. By the third day, the light has gone from his eyes. The man in the mirror is a stranger to him now. He walks the length of the city, and in his mind, a wife he once loved walks beside him. Mourning a child who doesn't exist in this time, pining for a friend-turned-enemy who holds all the answers, wasting away as his ability to sleep deteriorates, Alexander Smithson starts to become Alexander Hamilton. He grows his hair out, and takes to wearing it in a ponytail with a ribbon; his brows furrow, and his face gains the haunted look his later portraits contained. Living out of kilter with the rest of the modern world, he no longer cares when his mother raises her eyebrows at him over breakfast, nor, when his father returns from a business trip and harshly admonishes him for his appearance, does he retaliate. He fills more notebooks than word documents He finally meets Burr in a tiny pub, but the meeting is breif, and when they hold hands in the spitting rain afterwards the spark between them is dampened. Alexander had been thinking they would return to Burr's hotel room, but instead Burr's fingers had momentarily intertwined with his, and then he said goodnight. The wall between them is built from years of silence, and Alexander feels too incompetent to knock it down. 

By the end of the third month, Alexander Hamilton is a man out of time, and for all the satisfaction he gains, he is unhappy. 

-

Burr feels helpless. He watches Alexander fall from fiery greatness; his flair extinguished by the cold weather, and still does not know how to say the three simple words that could change everything. They meet several times after the night in the pub, and even when they laugh; even when Alexander, blissfully drunk, slings an arm around his shoulders and tells him that he loves him, Burr's grin does not meet his eyes. Even when, on one of the ten or so nights a year the _aurora borealis_ lights up the sky, they sit together at the banks of the River Clyde, Burr can feel the poison brewing. At the very least, life can get neither better nor worse. Alexander's insomnia starts to become a desperate concern. 

And then comes the early morning phone call. 

"Burr, I need your help," 

And Burr has never felt so afraid, because there is nothing left in Alexander's voice. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that a cliffhanger? Maybe, maybe not.  
> I'm sorrryyy I know it's sad, and dark, and probably kind of convoluted, but the darkest hour is always before the dawn :3


	3. Reconcilliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dawn is here so open up your shutters and enjoy it! We learn the meaning of that midnight phonecall, and what comes after that.

The sky is blind. The stars are hidden by a blanket of cloud, as Burr drives down slumbering city streets. His grip on the wheel is slick with clammy sweat.

_Burr, I need your help_

Oh, Alexander. Handsome, young, bright Alexander, the Collegian; depressed, _desolate_ Alexander, the lost young man. Burr tries to block the rest of the call from his mind, knowing it will consume him. He cannot afford to let that happen. Glasgow quivers in expectant silence, tarmac glistening, tall office buildings trembling in the wind that prowls and paces the length of Scotland. Soon, the storm will whirl back on itself, tearing into Glasgow in full force. For now, it is silent. Eerie calm holds the night in sway. The Clyde is swollen and restless, dark waters rising in revolt against the crumbling banks and Burr's heart sinks as he parks his car. In some places, the footpath is nothing but trampled mud. Splashing through puddles, swearing as water fills his trainers, Burr stumbles out of the car as thunder tears the sky in two. Murderous grey is lit up by neon lights, and the rain lashes down. His heart thunders in his chest, filling his throat as he tries to make his numbing lips form Alexander's name. There is every chance that he is too late; that in the time it took for him to struggle into a jumper and get the car started, Alexander was already lost. He might now be sinking into the murky depths, attacked by predatory undercurrents, limp body being dragged towards the sea. Burr can only hope.

"Alexander!" he pauses. Silence is his only reply. Did he really scream aloud? He cannot tell over the roaring in his ears. This is where he and Alexander sat side by side, watching the Northern Lights in wonderstruck silence. This is where Alexander had confessed to being slowly strangled by the city, by his overbearing mother; by the pretence of being normal. Surely not even Alexander would have gone much further than this? The night is furious now, rampaging winds ripping at Burr and causing the trees to bend like soldiers traipsing home from war.

Then he remembers how the other had sounded.

_I'm by the Clyde. Our place, y'know? I... Oh, Burr, I don't think I can stop myself doing anything stupid._

Alexander had sounded like a crater, or an ugly, gaping hole, left behind by the bomb-blast of remembering his true self. If only Burr had told him the truth, that night in New York, over a year ago now. If only he had been more willing to forget his own mistakes, and swallow his fear; if only he had been more brave. _If only I had not pulled that trigger on Alexander, my dearest friend whom I shot..._ Perhaps, just perhaps, if he had been allowed to forget that dawn. But Burr could never forget the sound of his gun, the smell of gun smoke, nor the cry that was torn from somewhere deep in his heart. _Wait. My Alexander, wait for me; it's your turn to wait._ Tears streak his cheeks: too many ifs and buts’ and maybes crowd his mind; he has too much to lose.

Someone is moving away from him.

"Alexander!" Burr cries out again, his hands reaching for the dark figure's coat. Fingers snag on the slippery, soaking plastic. A cheap poncho. Alexander doesn't own a coat like that but, irrational as it is, Burr cannot help but hope.

"What are you doing mate?" the voice is sharp, cutting through his clouded mind, and Burr stumbles back,  his eyes widening as he realises who he is looking at. The man is in his forties, at the least, with iron grey hair plastered to his forehead and hard, flinty eyes. A small dog runs around his heels, yapping and whining for attention. Burr can see the whites of its eyes. Wildly, Burr looks around himself. He is praying- actually _praying_ , pleading with a God he has never believed in- and at his heels, the dog goes berserk.

"Please... my friend-" he wishes he can remember how to breathe. His hands tangle in his hair, tugging, wildly gesturing towards the river. "He's in- he said he was going to-" air. Burr needs air.

"Shit," then a phone is ringing distantly. Burr turns on his heel, full circle.

" _Alexander!"_ screaming at the mud and rain and wind and swollen clouds; he is yelling at the top of his lungs, ignoring the voice telling him not to. Sirens clamour against his eardrums, and somebody is wrapping him in a blanket, making him get in the back of a police car. Is this how this will end? Their twisting, turning, convoluted story- the story of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr- cannot end this way. It simply cannot. Epic in its proportions of grief and joy, an echo of Perseus and Andromeda, their story is something that deserves a happy ending. Burr stares up and wishes he could see the stars; they have been there every time he and Alexander's paths cross. Now, in his hour of need, he has been abandoned. These officers do not understand anything.

A female officer arrives on the scene. Things begin to get done. A search starts up and down the river. People try to talk to Burr, someone attempts to get a statement, but he just pushes away the notebook that is shoved in his face. This time, nobody tries to stop him from getting out of the car, as he heads out into the torrential rain and starts to redouble his effort. A nameless officer suggests dogs. Burr finds one of Alexander's jackets, left in the back of the car after an outing. Another officers hands Burr an umbrella in exchange for the jacket; the action is so British, and so _useless_ that Burr starts to laugh. He is aware that something in his mind is momentarily becoming unhinged, and as fresh tears sting his eyes, he knows that he is hysterical. People are bursting free of the yellow tape, surging over the footpath, flooding the narrow walkway from the car park; they aren't all wearing uniforms, most of them are just ordinary people from the surrounding houses roused from their beds by the sirens.

When Alexander is finally pulled from the water in the early morning light, Burr starts to feel again. Agony slices his heart, as he cradles Alexander's freezing, shaking body and realises how much he cares; how much he had cared all along. This time, Aaron will not let go, or allow the doctors to pull him away. He holds Alexander's hand all the way to the hospital.

They are not alone together for a long time after that.

Alexander's family come and go. Burr stays rooted to his chair. Someone brings Burr a steaming cup of tea, strong. For shock. Is he in shock? Probably.

Porters and nurses come and go in an endless flood, fussing over Alexander with blankets and thermal insulating shiny stuff. It probably has a name but Burr doesn't listen to the explanation.

The psyche evaluation is the worst part.

Burr is certain that the psychiatrist can see through Alexander's smile, because Burr can. But that night, both of them sleep soundly enough; the beeping of the heart monitor had never been a nice sound until it is Alexander's heart lulling Burr into dreaming. No nightmares get either of them. When they wake the next morning, the young Scotsman looks better than he has for months: his cheeks hold a faint pink glow, his skin looks less like paper and more... _human-_ and his voice is regaining energetic strength.

Doctors shake their heads and marvel at how this young man is still alive. Who knew how long his pulse had been silent for as the Clyde tore into him? Not them. Alexander just shrugs and jokes that, clearly, the lovely Glasgow weather and food was too good for him to miss a lifetime of. Doctors look bewildered, but they can do no more. Burr just laughs politely.

The excruciating dance around one another lasts for just another 24 hours. First, Alexander goes home, where he is no doubt smothered by his current family. Or not. Burr cannot fathom them. As soon as he can get away from the domestic scene, Alexander meets Burr in that same, quiet pub Burr had made his haunt almost six months before. They get a drink- only orange juice and a dubious cup of tea, since the sun is still high in the sky, beating down proudly after her triumph over the storm. As soon as they are tucked away at a table in the pub garden, Alexander opens up to Burr.

"I saw Laurens," is how he begins in one pivotal moment, shattering the silence between them. Burr has to admit to a slight twinge of jealousy as he recalls the blue eyes and fair hair of the aide-de-camp Alexander had once been so close with; if Burr had been more familiar with Washington's camp during those early years, he may even have felt threatened by him. Still, he holds his tongue as Hamilton details those first moments in the icy water, and then how a tunnel had opened up in front of him. Alexander's eyes cloud over with dark fear as he recalls the dizzying fall, watching his own body getting dragged down and away from him and the exact moment when he had realized, _I am ruined._ Burr is transfixed when a nostalgia-laden smile graces Alexander's face. "...and Laurens just shoved me. He told me that I better not think my time was up so soon. Told me I better live again- and I caught sight of Washington, Lafayette, Troup, Phillip, Angelica, Eliza-" Alexander breaks off with a sharp gasp. "-even André... They all said the same thing,"

"We've all been back before," Burr sighs, swirling the grey leaves in the bottom of his teacup. Alexander's frown is distant.

"I did get that impression,"

"I suppose we just can't get it right," Burr murmurs and silence falls, but it is gentle and easy. Burr admires Alexander through a series of furtive glances, and soon the Scotsman is talking again, telling Burr about how he keeps on stepping on his sister's Lego. He admits to swearing at her, the dark flush that tints his ears proves him ashamed.

"That's why I'm not too sure I would make a great dad this time round," he laughs.

"I forgive you," Burr blurts out suddenly. For a moment, unease creeps back between them; Alexander laughs nervously.

"Who shot who?" is he joking? It is hard to tell.

"I... forgive you for endorsing Thomas Jefferson over me; I understand now why you did that, and what you said was not entirely unjustified," he watches those sharp, blue eyes carefully. He is frightened that he has gone too far.

"I forgive you for firing your gun," Alexander holds out his hand, and it is such an action of friendship and chivalry that Burr has to contain his laughter.

"B-But do you forgive me for killing you?"

"I think I had burned through everything I had anyway,"

"In that case... can we start again?"

"Yes," Alexander leans in closer. Burr takes his hand.

"Shall I buy you a drink, Colonel Hamilton?"

"That would be nice," Alexander's crooked grin illuminates the afternoon.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, I found the willpower to copy this up from paper! Well, what do you all think? The ending was actually another three A4 sides, but I realised that it was nicer this way; although I'll post a "bonus" epilogue with the rest of their lives sketched out, if you want. A nice ending to their love story XD I'm kind of thrilled this done, because now I can put more effort into my transgender Hamilton fanfic and leave this rocky start behind. Thank you so much for all the kudos, and let me know what you thought and whether you want that epilogue. To follow my fanfic ideas and for previews of upcoming works (plus fanart), follow my instagram (caerulium) because I lack a tumblr account... sadly. See y'all next time


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